A new possibility for the world, existence, and history

Here's the sermon I shared at Holy Cross Basildon and (in a condensed form) at St Andrew's Wickford this afternoon:

To us, the resurrection is a wonderful event. One that we have been celebrating since Easter Sunday in hymns such as Jesus lives! and Thine be the glory risen, conquering Son. But to the women who first encountered the resurrection it was anything but wonderful. Instead, it was a shocking, unexpected, fearful experience.

We are often surprised to read that that was their reaction because we are so familiar with the resurrection stories and the idea of resurrection itself. And we wonder why they weren’t instantly grateful to know that their teacher and Lord was alive again. But those people who were there at the time were on unfamiliar and disturbing ground and they were unable initially to see the wonder and glory of what had occurred.

And many people today who are not Christians would react in ways that are similar to the reactions of those women. Many would struggle with the whole idea that someone can rise again from the dead and would view this central Christian belief as a reason for rejecting, rather than accepting, Christianity.

So, what I would like to share with you this evening then are two things from this passage that suggest that Jesus did rise from the dead and two things that suggest why his rising is important for us today.

First, the reaction of the women suggests to us that there was nothing in the Judaism of their day that had prepared them for the idea that one person could rise from the dead. They were distressed and fearful, in part, because they had no way of understanding or comprehending what had happened. It was totally outside of any frame of reference that they had.

Most Palestinian Jews at the time believed that God would resurrect the bodies of the dead at the end of the age. When Jesus had spoken to the disciples about his own resurrection, it is probable that they would have understood him to have been meaning that he would rise again as part of this general resurrection at the end of the age. This belief in a general resurrection was not accepted by all Jews. The Sadducees, in particular, argued that there was no resurrection at all. But even where this belief in a general resurrection was held, there was never any thought that one person would rise ahead of everyone else.

The reaction of these women - bewilderment and fear – is entirely consistent with situations where we are confronted by things that are totally outside our way of understanding the world and life itself and which radically challenge beliefs which we had thought were unchallengeable. The idea that one person could rise from the dead was so far outside their understanding of life, death and God that they could not have invented it. And, if they had, then they would not have responded with astonishment and fear because they would have known where the idea had come from and would have wanted to have appeared confident in their claim. You don’t convince anyone by being confused and in hiding.

So, instead the reaction of these women suggests that something significant had occurred and that that significant something could only have been the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

The second factor in this story which suggests that Jesus did rise from the dead is the idea that it was women who first discovered his resurrection. The Judaism of their day, like most cultures at that time, was patriarchal. The testimony of women, particularly in a court of law, was either inadmissible or regarded as of lesser value than the testimony of men. If the disciples had wanted to make up a story about Jesus rising from the dead then they certainly wouldn’t have said that it was the women in their group that had discovered his resurrection.

It is interesting, in this context, that the first known pagan written critique of Christianity builds on the Gospels’ report of women as the first witnesses and proclaimers of Jesus’ resurrection. It is called The True Word and was written by the middle Platonist Celsus in A.D. 175. Celsus claims that a ‘hysterical’ female was the witness to Jesus’ resurrection. To Celsus’ patriarchal mind all women were unreliable witnesses because they were hysterical and as a result, he then discounts the claims of the Gospels about the resurrection.

Both these factors then can give us confidence that the resurrection stories are telling us about actual events because if they weren’t then the Gospel writers would not have written them as they have. If the stories about the resurrection had been made up, then in order to be convincing they would have had men as the first people to discover that the resurrection had occurred and those people discovering the resurrection would be portrayed as entirely confident and clear about what they had seen and heard instead of the portrayal that we actually have, one of confusion and fear.

These are not the only factors which give us confidence that these stories have the ring of truth but they are two that emerge clearly from this account of the resurrection in Mark’s Gospel. What of the meaning of the resurrection though? Why is it so important and how can it affect us today if we believe that it occurred?

Again, two ideas drawn from this account. First, the message of the young man to the women (verse 7) – “He is going … ahead of you”. Literally, this means that Jesus had gone to Galilee where he would show himself to the disciples when they followed him there. But, at another level, it indicates what Jesus’ resurrection means. We read in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus has been raised from death as the guarantee that we will also be raised from death. He is described as being the first fruits of those who have died. In rising from the dead, he has gone ahead of us into the new risen body and existence that we shall experience in future when Jesus returns to this earth to fully bring God’s Kingdom into existence here.

When Jesus walked the earth, he looked ahead to that future time when the Kingdom of God will be made perfect, and all suffering will come to an end. But he also announced that, because of him, there is a sense in which that Kingdom has already begun. When he healed sick people and brought good news to the poor it was a sign that the Kingdom had come. In the same way, when he overcame death by rising from the dead he became the first fruits of the Kingdom, an example of what we will all become in future.

Jesus wants us to be signs of God’s Kingdom in the same way that he was. He commanded us, his followers, to love in the way that he did. He wanted people to see us practically demonstrating love, so that we will clearly be recognised as men and women who belong to God. When Christians take action on behalf of the world’s poorest communities we not only put into practice the values of the Kingdom of God here and now but also become signs of what the Kingdom will be like when it is made perfect in eternity. That is what it means to pray, ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’

So, by the resurrection, Jesus has gone ahead of us in signing and establishing the Kingdom of God and calls us to follow where he leads. In this way, as the theologian Jurgen Moltmann says, the “resurrection of Christ does not mean a new possibility within the world and its history, but a new possibility altogether for the world, for existence, and for history.” That’s the first indication of what resurrection means in this passage.

The second, takes us back to the women and their position in a patriarchal society. God deliberately chooses women to discover Jesus' resurrection because the Kingdom of God, of which the resurrection is the first fruits, is to be a place of equality and inclusion. In his ministry, Jesus consistently included in God’s Kingdom those people in Jewish society that were excluded – he included women in his followers, he brought lepers and possessed people back into the community by healing them, he ate and drank with tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes.

Therefore, it is significant that it is people who were thought of as being second class in the society of his day who become the first witnesses to his resurrection. In the Kingdom of God which Jesus’ resurrection inaugurates, no one is second class and this is why the Apostle Paul writes in his letters, “there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free men, between men and women; you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Just as we are called to be signs of God’s Kingdom in the way that we love, so we are also called to be signs of God’s Kingdom by the way in which we include those who are excluded in our day. In our churches we need to be able to demonstrate that we are all one in Christ Jesus by there being no difference in the way that we accept men and women, white and black, rich and poor, straight and gay, non-disabled and disabled, the settled and the migrant, people of faith and people of no faith. We are called to be a people of liberation who cross the divides erected by our society. Who, as Jurgen Moltmann has said, in solidarity enter “the brotherhood of those who, in their society, are visibly living in the shadow of the cross: the poor, the handicapped, the people society has rejected, the prisoners and the persecuted.”

Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of a new way of being human – a way of being human that ultimately knows no death, no grief, no crying, no pain, no inequality and no exclusion. Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of the healing and renewal of human beings, human society and the entire world. This is the meaning of the resurrection. This is where we, and our world, can be heading, if we get on board with God.

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Delirious? - Our God Reigns (Forever His Truth Shall Remain).

Testimony in the courtroom of life

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr, and was stoned to death (Acts 7. 54-60). Saul (the future Saint Paul) guards the clothes of those who stone Saint Stephen outside the city. In the Acts of the Apostles, Stephen is described as one of the seven deacons whose job it is to care for the widows in the early Church in Jerusalem. His eloquent speech before the Sanhedrin, in which he shows the great sweep of Jewish history as leading to the birth of Jesus, the long-expected Messiah, and his impassioned plea that all might hear the good news of Jesus, leads to his inevitable martyrdom by being stoned to death. 

As the author of Acts, Luke's description of Stephen bears direct parallels to that of Christ: for example, being filled with the Holy Spirit; seeing the Son of God as the right hand of God, as Jesus promised he would be; commending his spirit to Jesus, as Jesus commended his to the Father; kneeling as Jesus did in Gethsemane and asking forgiveness for his persecutors. Witnessing to Jesus by acting like Jesus in every way is thus seen by Luke as of the essence of the Christian life.

The Greek word "martus" signifies a "witness". It is in this sense that the term first appears in Christian literature; the Apostles were "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. The Apostles, from the beginning as the story of St Stephen makes clear, faced grave dangers, until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term martus came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty of death. From this stage the transition was easy to the ordinary meaning of the term, as used ever since in Christian literature: a martyr, or witness of Christ, as a person who suffers death rather than deny his faith.

There continue to be Christians who experience persecution or martyrdom today and we must pray for and support our brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church. It is, probably, unlikely that we will share with St Stephen in this experience, even so, we can still share with St Stephen in the other meaning of martus; that of being a witness who gives testimony. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin has explained that testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

What is the content of our testimony? Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others. That is what Jesus called us to do before he ascended to the Father; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. So, we don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that it has made.

Malcolm Guite sums up these thoughts as follows:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,
Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.
They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,
And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul.
When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter
He had to pass through that Damascus gate
Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter
As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,
And showed him the same light you saw from heaven
And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;
Christ did not ask ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’
But ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
Each martyr after you adds to his story,
As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory. ()

Prayer: Gracious Father, who gave the first martyr Stephen grace to pray for those who took up stones against him: grant that in all our sufferings for the truth we may learn to love even our enemies and to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt, looking up to heaven to him who was crucified for us, Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Malcolm Guite and Rob Groves - Angels Unawares.

Who are you?

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Who are you? That was the question that the priests and Levites asked John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading (John 1. 6-8, 19-28). Think for a moment about the way in which you answer that question when someone asks it of you.

Often when we are asked who we are, we answer by saying what we do and tell the person asking about the job that we do. For many of us, our work seems to be the thing that we think is the most significant thing about us. If we don’t talk about our job, then we might talk about a role we have, perhaps being a parent, or we might talk about our family; so, I might say to someone who knows my family that I’m Phil and Pauline’s son or Rachel’s brother. Another tack might be to talk about our interests, so I might say that I’m a painter or a writer or an Oxford United fan. Whatever we say in answer to the question ‘Who are you?’ the answer usually involves saying something about ourselves.

So, it is surprising that when John the Baptist is asked who he is, he doesn’t say anything about himself at all. Firstly, he is asked whether he is one of the great figures of the Jewish religion; the Messiah, Elijah or Moses. We’ve probably all at some time pretended that we are one of our heroes, whether we’ve played at being our favourite pop star looking into our bedroom mirror and singing into our hair brush or have wanted to be Pele or Bobby Moore or Kevin Keegan or Ronaldo when we have been playing football with our mates. We all have delusions of grandeur! Even as Vicars, maybe wanting to be the next Billy Graham or Justin Welby or Tom Wright!

The temptation for John the Baptist to claim his place in the pantheon of Jewish heroes must have been strong but what he actually says is just ‘No, I am not.’ Nothing about who he is, just statements of what he is not. And yet these denials have huge significance.

On one level they are a way of saying that what he is part of, what he is pointing towards can’t be explained by the usual ways of understanding things. The priests and Levites were looking for a category that they could use to understand John, perhaps so that they could label him and file him away and forget about him. If we can fit someone into a neat category – he’s a Hammers fan, she’s single mother, he’s Irish or she’s a computer programmer - then we feel as though we’ve got them sussed and we know all about them. John doesn’t allow that to happen and by doing so says that what is going on here does fit any of your categories; it’s ‘outside the box’ and, if you’re going to understand then you’ve got to have your way of thinking about God expanded and changed.

On another level, his denials are also a subtle way of pointing to Jesus as God. Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus makes a series of I AM statements about himself. He says, ‘I AM the living water, the bread of life’ and so on. In doing so, Jesus is using the very name of God who responded to Moses by saying ‘I AM who I AM.’ John by contrast says, ‘I AM NOT.’ By framing his denial using the ‘I AM’ statement he is pointing his listeners to the one who will come after him who will be able to say ‘I AM,’ who will be God himself.

This is John the Baptist’s sole mission and purpose; not to point people to himself by saying look at me aren’t I wonderful? Instead, it is to point away from himself in order to point to Jesus. That is what the writer of this Gospel says in verses 6-9: “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.”

We see this also in what John the Baptist does say about himself. When he is asked, “What do you say about yourself?", his reply is to say ‘I’m not the significant person here, I’m actually only a voice calling out to prepare the way for the one who is to come. Don’t pay attention to who I am instead listen to my message and look for the coming of the Lord.

The same thing is there in what he says about baptism. John is asked why he baptizes but he doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he again points beyond what he is doing to the one who comes after him, the one who is so much greater that John feels unworthy even to untie the thongs of his sandals.

In his commentary of this passage Lesslie Newbigin says that this is the mark of a true witness; “the function of a witness is not to develop conclusions out of already known data, but simply to point to, report, affirm” the new reality that the witness has seen and heard. This is also what John’s Gospel sets out to do and what it wants those who read it, like us, to become. Newbigin writes:

“[John] points his hearers to Jesus (e.g., 1:29ff., 36ff.; 3:27ff.); Jesus draws his hearers to himself. But these hearers will in turn become witnesses through whom others may believe (15:27; 17:20; 20:31), for the purpose is that not some but all … may come to faith. This book in its final form is based upon the testimony of one of these witnesses (21:24), and its purpose is that it readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing may have life in his name.”

So, we are to be witnesses like John, this is our calling as Christians. And this is essentially a simple task. We are not asked to become fluent in all the doctrines of the Christian faith or to have an answer for every question that people ask about Christianity. Instead, like John we are to be witnesses to what we have seen and heard about Jesus. The focus is not on us and our lives but on him and what we know of him and have experienced of him in our lives. So instead of needing to memorize a Gospel presentation like ‘2 Ways to Live’, all we need to do to be a witness is to tell our story; this is how I came to know Jesus and this is what he has come to mean to me.

Christmas is a time for preparation and then for sharing. The example that John the Baptist sets is one of preparing people for the real Christmas gift; the coming of Jesus. Can we do the same this Christmas by sharing the best news of all, the good news, with those around us – our family, friends, neighbours, and work colleagues – simply by being witnesses and pointing others to Jesus by telling our story of knowing him ourselves? 

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Hail to the Lord's anointed!

Catherine of Alexandria: A persecuted Patron Saint

Here's the reflection I shared at St Catherine's Wickford in their Patronal Festival Evensong:

Our readings today (Daniel 12 and Revelation 13.11-18) describe times of anguish in which many are deceived and oppressed but where those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

More than 5,600 Christians were killed for their faith last year. More than 2,100 churches were attacked or closed. More than 124,000 Christians were forcibly displaced from their homes because of their faith, and almost 15,000 became refugees. Sub-Saharan Africa—the epicentre of global Christianity—is now also the epicentre of violence against Christians, as Islamist extremism has spread well beyond Nigeria. And North Korea is back at No. 1 of the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous and difficult to be a Christian, according to the 2023 World Watch List, the latest annual accounting from Open Doors. Overall, 360 million Christians live in nations with high levels of persecution or discrimination. That’s 1 in 7 Christians worldwide, including 1 in 5 believers in Africa, 2 in 5 in Asia, and 1 in 15 in Latin America.

Tradition has it that Catherine of Alexandria was a girl of a noble family who, because of her Christian faith, refused marriage with the emperor as she was already a 'bride of Christ'. She is said to have disputed with fifty philosophers whose job it was to convince her of her error, and she proved superior in argument to them all. She was then tortured by being splayed on a wheel and finally beheaded. The firework known as the Catherine Wheel took its name from her wheel of martyrdom.

The Greek word "martus" signifies a "witness". It is in this sense that the term first appears in Christian literature; the Apostles were "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. The Apostles, from the beginning, faced grave dangers, until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term martus came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty of death. From this stage the transition was easy to the ordinary meaning of the term, as used ever since in Christian literature: a martyr, or witness of Christ, as a person who suffers death rather than deny his faith. Catherine of Alexandria was one such.

Paula Fredriksen writes that “The martyrs are a heroic minority. They don't represent a huge popular swelling. We don't have tens of thousands of people being martyred. What we do have, is tens of thousands of people admiring the few who are martyred. So in that sense, the martyr stories have an incredible effect on the imagination of Christians.”

Elizabeth Clark thinks: “the martyrdom stories that got circulated were very important for the development of early Christianity. Several of the martyrdoms … say that there were pagans present … who were so impressed by the... courage of the Christians that they came to see the truth of the Christian religion themselves and immediately converted to Christianity.... Probably, for the most part, though, these martyrdom accounts were written for other Christians to try to bolster the Christians' faith at a time of persecution. To keep up your courage in case this happened to you as well.”

After three decades of their research, Open Doors, who prepared the statistics I shared at the beginning of this sermon, has learned that such needed resilience is found by being “anchored in the Word of God and in prayer.” Also, by being “courageous,” as the persecuted church is most often “active in spreading the gospel” and “vital and growing against the odds.”

As we have reflected, there continue to be Christians who experience persecution or martyrdom today and we must pray for and support our brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church, remembering those many, many places where persecution is real and Christians are being killed regularly and mercilessly or imprisoned and harassed for their resistance to injustice.

While it is, probably, unlikely that we will share with them in that experience, even so, we can still share with them in the other meaning of martus; that of being a witness who gives testimony. We are called, with the Apostles, Saints and Martyrs, to be those who tell our stories of encountering Jesus to others. To do this, we don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith nor do we have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or have memorized the sinner’s prayer or have tracts to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus.

All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that has made. That may even be the very best way to celebrate our Patronal Festival.

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Delirious? - History Maker.

Witnesses in the trial of life

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

The teachings of Jesus “are read more, quoted more, loved more, believed more, and translated more because they are the greatest words ever spoken … No other man’s words have the appeal of Jesus’ words because no other man can answer these fundamental human questions as Jesus answered them. They are the kind of words and the kind of answers we would expect God to give.” Professor Bernard Ramm

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“Jesus was irresistibly attractive as a man … What they crucified was a young man, full of life and the joy of it, the Lord of life itself, and even more the Lord of laughter, someone so utterly attractive that people followed him for the sheer fun of it.” Lord Hailsham

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony in today's Gospel reading (Matthew 16: 13-20), the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others. That is what Jesus called us to do before he ascended to the Father; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. No more, no less.

We don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that it has made.

I want to encourage us today that this is something which each of us can do. The best description I have heard of it is to gossip the Gospel. Just simply in everyday conversation with others to talk about the difference that knowing Jesus has on our lives.

It is also important to remember that we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’.

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The Mercy Seat - Let The Church Roll On/I Won't Be Back.

Conversion of Paul

Here's the sermon that I preached this morning at St Andrew’s Wickford:

Today the Church remembers the conversion of St Paul (Acts 9. 1-22); a feast that has been celebrated in the Church since the sixth century but which became universal in the twelfth century. Paul’s conversion has become a classic Christian encounter with God, to the extent that the phrase ‘a Damascus Road experience’, meaning an extraordinarily dramatic conversion or a profound life-changing experience, has come into common usage.

Saul’s Damascus Road experience literally turned his life upside down as is symbolised by his fall. One moment he was up on his feet - a leader of others with a warrant from the High Priest to arrest heretics – the next, he was flat on his back in the road with God telling him that those he was persecuting were actually God’s own people – the body of Christ. In one moment, everything he thought he knew was shown to be false and the entire direction that his life had taken up to that point was reversed so that he goes from this encounter to preach the Christ whom formally he had persecuted. The story suggests that this is the power of God’s presence – encounter with God reveals the inadequacy of all that we have known up to that point and turns us around to receive and know the truth.

This is also symbolised by the light which shines in this story. In the Bible, Jesus is spoken of as ‘the light of the world.’ This light shines in the darkness of error and reveals truth. John 3. 18 – 20 says: “This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up.” Saul comes into the light, sees that his deeds are evil, turns away from them and begins a new way of life signalled by taking a new name.

Through this encounter Saul sees: that Jesus is God; Jesus has been raised from death and is alive; and Jesus is in his people - the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Or does he? One of the strange aspects of this story is that in the story Saul does not see. He does not actually see Jesus - instead he hears his voice - and the immediate result of the encounter is that Saul is blinded and cannot physically see.

So, what is going on here? Is this encounter with God as straightforward as my earlier comments suggested? It may be that sight distracts us from hearing the still, small (perhaps inner) voice of God; that it is only once he has been blinded by the light that Saul can hear what God wishes to say to him. So, there may be an element of asceticism in the story – the closing off of physical sight in order to enhance spiritual insight.

We might also suggest that darkness, blindness, lack of sight and lack of knowing is actually essential to true encounter with God. As God cannot be defined or fully comprehended by human beings, it may be essential to true encounter with God to realise our inability to fully ‘know’ God and therefore to accept and rest in the darkness and blindness of our lack of knowing.

We also need to remember that his conversion experience was a beginning: Saul took some time to become Paul and some time to begin to understand that his call to preach -- to Jew and to Gentile -- the saving power of Jesus, the Son of God, was something that was a whole life's journey for him. Paul says in his Letter to the Church in Galatia, "God set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace ... Three years after (the Damascus Road conversion), I went up to Jerusalem." The preparation for this moment of his conversion was his whole life.

Finally, it is easy for us to think that to be effective our testimonies must be dramatic as was the testimony of Paul. The story of how the persecutor of the faith became the Apostle to Gentiles, including his Damascus Road experience, was and is a story full of drama and one which had huge impact in its day and has had since.

However, we should not, as a result, despise other less dramatic and more gradual testimonies of faith. My own story is one of growing up in a Christian family and of coming to faith as a child after hearing an account of the crucifixion at a Holiday Bible Club. That night I knelt by my bed and asked Jesus into my life. As a shy teenager very aware of my own shortcomings I later doubted whether I was good enough for God but in my late teens was shown Romans 5. 8, which says “while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” by a youth group leader and, as a result, recommitted my life to Christ. Over the course of my life, I have felt God leading me to develop the particular mix of community action, workplace ministry, artistic activities and relationship building that characterises my ministry today.

That simple, undramatic testimony will I hope be an encouragement to those of you here today who, like me, don’t have dramatic testimonies to tell but who nevertheless have real encounters with God and real growth in faith to share as part of our testimonies. When we do so, we are witnesses to Jesus and to the impact and effect that he has had on our lives. 

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Bob Dylan - Precious Angel.

Witnesses who give testimony in a trial

Here's the reflection I shared in today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. All three were crucified for the same crime - the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” Martin Luther King Jr

"Where was Mother Teresa's Jesus? He was in the Bible, in the church, in her prayer, in the Eucharist, in her sisters, in the heart of everyone she met, and especially in the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low. Jesus was in disguise in each one of them. Jesus was behind the foundation of her order. Jesus was behind all that she did.” Mother Teresa

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony that we have just listened to, the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16: 13-20). Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-reliant, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’.

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We Have A Gospel To Proclaim.

Come and see

Here's my sermon from last Sunday for the Chinese congregations at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Seeing is believing, they say. When Thomas was told that Jesus had risen from the dead, he famously said unless I see … I will not believe.

In today’s Gospel reading (John 1.29-42) we hear Jesus saying to those who would become his first disciples, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw … and … remained with him that day. Then they said what they saw, telling Simon Peter, Andrew’s brother, ‘We have found the Messiah.’

The two disciples initially speak to Jesus because John the Baptist has told them to look at Jesus. John does so because of what he has seen: ‘John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’’

At the beginning of his story, the writer of John’s Gospel is telling us to come and see Jesus for ourselves. That is his purpose in writing. What is it that we see when we come and see?

James Allan Francis gives us one understanding when he writes in ‘One Solitary Life’: ‘Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was his coat. When he was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centrepiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.

Allan Francis is saying that when we look at Jesus we see an amazing story of incredible influence deriving from one obscure life; a story so amazing that it must be of God, a life so amazing that it must be of God.

But if the story and its influence are amazing, the person that we see is equally so. St Paul describes the character of Jesus in Philippians 2: ‘Christ Jesus … / though he was in the form of God, / did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, / but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, / being born in human likeness. / And being found in human form, / he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — / even death on a cross.’

In Christ’s actions and character we see the most exceptional love expressed in self-sacrifice. Jesus was, as Lord Hailsham once said, ‘irresistibly attractive.’ That is why Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: ‘I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.’ It is why Bernard Levin poses the question: ‘Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.’ Jesus was ‘Love all lovely, Love Divine,’ as Christina Rossetti noted.

If we say what we see when we come and see Jesus, then we are likely to say with the writer of John’s Gospel: ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth … From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace … No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

When we come and see Jesus, we also see God himself. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: ‘God has spoken to us by a Son … He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.’

The next day one of the disciples to whom Jesus said, ‘Come and see,’ repeated those same words to a friend. We read in John 1. 43 – 52 that: ‘Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”’

Philip was giving testimony by saying what he had seen and by encouraging Nathanael to come and see for himself. That is what we are called to do ourselves, once we have seen Jesus ourselves. We don’t need to have theological training. We don’t need to be able to answer every question that others have about the meaning of life or the existence of God. We simply say, ‘Come and see Jesus,’ trusting that when people genuinely see Jesus for who he is, like us, they will fall in love with him and wish to follow him too.

By inviting others to ‘Come and see Jesus,’ we are giving our testimony that he is the most important person in our life and in the lives of all people. We are saying, ‘I could invite you to see all sorts of things and all sorts of people, but I want you to see Jesus because he is the one that is most important to me.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin argued that this is what is ‘at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.’

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-reliant, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Andrew began by saying to Peter, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Later, when Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Peter gave the answer, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ He had come to see Jesus at the invitation of his brother. By coming to see for himself, he had realised that Jesus was the Son of God and could therefore tell others to come and see and then say what they saw.

We are part of the witness that has been built on that same rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial.’

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Tell Out My Soul The Greatness Of The Lord.

The diversity of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost is the turning point in the history of Christ’s Church. The believers have gone from gathering together in fear of the authorities to gathering together in readiness for the promised gift. They are waiting to be baptised with the Holy Spirit. Jesus has spoken to them about the Kingdom of God and told them that when the Holy Spirit comes upon them they will be filled with power and will be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That prophecy and promise is fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enables the believers to take God’s message to all.

We often think that Jesus’ words, “you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” mean that they were to start with their own people and gradually move from there to the ends of earth. What we forget is that on the day of Pentecost there were Jews and Gentile converts living in Jerusalem who had come from many different parts of the world. The different countries or areas are listed for us in verses 9 – 11 of Acts 2: Parthia, Media and Elam; Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia; Pontus and Asia; Phrygia and Pamphylia; Egypt and Libya; Rome, Crete and Arabia. A real diversity of nationalities and ethnicities was right there on the streets in Jerusalem that day.

This diversity meant that a diversity of languages were being spoken in Jerusalem and the coming of the Holy Spirit enabled the believers in Jerusalem to engage with the diversity that they found. As they were filled with the Holy Spirit they all began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. As a result, although the believers were mainly Galileans and not known for being multi-lingual, each person there in Jerusalem heard God’s message in his or her own language. The Holy Spirit embraced the diversity of Jerusalem and gave the believers the tools they needed to communicate in and through that diversity.

But those diversities – of nationality and language – aren’t the only diversities mentioned in this passage. In explaining what God is doing at that time in Jerusalem, Peter speaks about a diversity of age and gender. Look at the passage that he quotes from the Book of Joel in verses 17 - 21 – there we find the Holy Spirit being poured out on everyone, young and old, men and women, so that all see visions, dream dreams and proclaim God’s message. God uses the diversity of age and gender among the believers in order to speak to the diversity of nations and languages in Jerusalem.

Now think about our situation here in London. Doesn’t it, in some ways, seem similar to the situation in Jerusalem? London has always been one of the world's great cosmopolitan cities. Throughout history, people have come from every continent and corner of the globe to live, to visit, and to mix. Today the city brings together more than 50 ethnic communities of 10,000 or more people. More than 70 different national cuisines are available and a staggering 300 different languages are spoken. The world is right here in London, just as it was in Jerusalem.

Just as, at Pentecost, God poured out his Spirit on old and young, men and women, so a similar diversity can be seen in the City and among City Churches. That diversity is given to us so that we can proclaim the message of God to people of every ethnicity, age, gender, disability, sexuality and religion. And we need the Holy Spirit’s power, gifts and enabling to make that happen.

We need to remember too that as the Early Church grew and as God’s message spread there were people who tried to restrict this wonderful new diversity. Even Peter, who led this move into diversity at Pentecost, on one occasion in Galatia tried to restrict the diversity of what God was doing and had to be rebuked by Paul. In the same way today, there are those both in the Church and in our society who want to place restrictions on this diversity.

In the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost God celebrates and engages with the diversity that we find in the world he has created. The Holy Spirit comes on all for all and we must not seek to restrict the Spirit’s coming but must enable all to hear God’s call on their lives and be filled by the Spirit just as occurred on that first Pentecost in Jerusalem when all the world’s diversity was gathered to see the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all and for all.

This sermon can be heard at the London Internet Church site.

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Vertical Worship Band - Spirit Of The Living God.

Towards a Politics for the Common Good

Towards a Politics for the Common Good was a Pre-Election Debate at St Martin-in-the-Fields tonight.

In the run-up to the General Election a panel of eminent parliamentarians from different political parties and denominations discussed their approaches to key election issues in the light of Christian social and ethical teaching. They explored how we can, as we exercise our democratic right to vote, best serve the Christian principles we believe in. Is it possible to see the issues of our time through a different lens? Can we work together to cultivate a politics for the common good?

Rather than a hustings, the guest parliamentarians responded to questions posed by theologians Dr Sam Wells (St Martin-in-the-Fields) and Dr Anna Rowlands (Durham University), and audience members from all political persuasions. The event was organised by St Martin-in-the-Fields in partnership with Together for the Common Good:

"We need the associations and collaborations of civil society" Sam Wells

"Local churches are witnesses on the ground in every local community" Anna Rowlands

"The common good in a human fallible society faces the challenge of agreeing on what that is and how to achieve it." Dominic Grieve

"How do we cope with choice when we can't always decide what the common good is?" Alistair Burt

"We are hooked on home ownership in this country - makes solving housing problem harder." Alistair Burt

"The biggest challenge to common good is hyper individualism and Christians should care passionately about this." David Lammy

"It's hard to achieve common good in a culture of bad faith and there is lots of bad faith at the moment." David Lammy

"If we assume bad faith - common ground, is hard to achieve." David Lammy

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Bill Fay - Order Of The Day.

Small pebbles on the graves of the dead

Francine Mayran has been exhibiting her paintings and sculptures since 1999. Her artistic work of memory on the Holocaust has developed in parallel since 2008:

'She thinks that painting imposed itself as an imperative, to serve the transmission of an intransmissible genocide, the one of men, women and children, whose only crime was to be Jewish or Gypsy, or in 1915 Armenian, or in 1975 Cambodian or Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.

She says, as the American painter Samuel Bak, "I didn’t choose the Shoah, but the Shoah chose me to become one of its bearers of testimony".

Her aim is to connect photos and objective evidence of the past, and to link them through a personal pictorial creation, as in a line of descent, so that these images remain and live on and so that through painting, they become moments of the present.

She tries as a bearer of memory, to take over from the memory of the last direct witnesses, who little by little pass away.

Her creations also try to be echo of other memories, those of the Gypsies, those of the homosexuals, those of the resistants deported because of their ideas,as well as those of the handicapped persons.

As the artist says: “To speak, to write, to paint are small pebbles on the graves of the dead, words of support to survivors to allow them to leave their burden of guilt and responsibility and pass on their message.”'

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Yaakov Shwekel - Shema Yisroel.

Nobody likes evangelism - Watchnight sermon

“I want to let you into a secret. Nobody likes evangelism. Not you. Not me. Not Christians. Not non-Christians.” So writes Krish Kandiah, from the Evangelical Alliance. He continues: "Of course, everyone celebrates when somebody is converted. We all long for our friends and family to know the hope that somebody once shared with us. But the business of actually telling them about God often ends up feeling awkward, politically incorrect, frightening, messy and time-consuming.”

“According to a recent Evangelical Alliance survey of 17,000 UK evangelical Christians, the older we are in years and faith, the less likely we are to share our beliefs. This survey, 21st Century Evangelicals, also showed that although 90% of us are convinced that we should be active in evangelism, the likelihood that we will speak to anyone this month about God is no more than 60%. The survey confirmed what many of us already feel: evangelism is important – but it just isn’t happening.”

“Why is it so difficult to talk about the most central and significant part of our lives? Why do so many of us feel timid, but appear arrogant? Or feel unqualified, but appear Biblebashing? What does evangelism need to look like to be biblically faithful and culturally relevant, an integral and inspirational part of our walk with God, and a natural part of our relationships with others?”

“Evangelism doesn’t have to mean arm-twisting our neighbours into attending church meetings, or forcing our colleagues to come to terms with their own mortality in their coffee break. Evangelism doesn’t have to be formulaic, middle class, manipulative or misleading. Evangelism doesn’t have to be a war of words or wills. Evangelism should not be a chore, a challenge – or a choice.” As we will see, “Evangelism Jesus-style is for all his disciples as we live authentic, humble lives.”

So, how do people become Christians? Well, there are many different ways. No two people have the same story. Many people are brought up in the church. They are evangelised and nurtured through their family and through all the contacts within the church that they have as they grow up. Some lapse away from church and then come back to a living faith later in life. Others stay as part of the church but are still not really sure what they believe. Others come into contact with the God and the claims of the gospel through all sorts of circumstances, things as varied as moving house, losing a loved one, reading a book, the birth of a child, chatting to a friend, or looking into a star filled sky. Something happens to open people up to the possibility of God, and so begins the journey of discovery that we call coming to faith in Jesus Christ. But one thing is common to every story, and that is the presence and the loving purposes of God. God is the evangelist. God is the one who calls people. God is the one who is known to people though Jesus Christ.

Our job as the church isn’t to convert people – only God can do that – but to allow God to use us in his constant desire to make Christ known to everyone. We do this by trying to live Christ-like lives, by serving our local communities, by providing opportunities for people to find out about the Christian faith, and by sharing the story of our own faith and the story of Jesus. This intentional ministry of witnessing to Christ and helping people make the journey of faith is what the church calls evangelism.

Our Text for 2014 (Colossians 4. 5 – 6) sets this out when it says: “Be wise in the way you act toward those who are not believers, making good use of every opportunity you have. Your speech should always be pleasant and interesting, and you should know how to give the right answer to everyone.”

This text says that mission and evangelism is about our actions and about our words. To combine these two as our Text for 2014 suggests we just need to rediscover something of our Lord Jesus: “Jesus demonstrated the good news of God in his actions centering on his life, death and resurrection, but also in the way he touched lepers, challenged hypocrisy, fed the hungry and healed the sick.

Jesus’ perfect actions spoke louder than our words ever could. But he didn’t stop there – he explained his actions, finding the right words for the right people and modelling for us the fact that, just as we push back the boundaries of social action, equally we need to be pushing back the boundaries of our conversations.

Sometimes Jesus told a story, sometimes he engaged in discussion, sometimes he reminded people of Old Testament ideas, sometimes preaching, sometimes provoking, sometimes walking away with a punchline. He never used long words, he was never patronising. He was always accessible, always loving, always gracious ... Evangelism Jesus-style is for all his disciples as we live authentic, humble lives.”

Now, there are some who are natural at sharing the gospel, but most of us need help to develop our skills. When it comes to evangelism we have the advantage that God himself is the Evangelist. He wants people everywhere to know his love for them through Christ and he invites us to join with him in this work. For many of us, as we have seen, the thought of speaking about our faith is not natural yet, at the same time we long for our friends, neighbours or relatives, to discover Christ for themselves.

In 2014 the Diocese of Chelmsford will celebrate 100 years of faithful service to Essex and East London. 2014 will be a great time to celebrate the hope which our churches have shared in the living Christ over our first 100 years and to commit to our next 100 years together. Bishop Stephen wants every parish in the diocese to: put on a Mission Weekend as part of the centenary celebrations; try to do one thing in evangelism it has never done before; and have in place a small team of people who have had some training and experience in evangelism. Also in 2014, by working in partnership with churches across London, Crossing London hopes to provide, during Autumn 2014, an opportunity for 10,000+ residents in London and the Home Counties to make a faith commitment and then to grow as disciples of Jesus. Both initiatives encourage us to share our faith with people on the fringe or outside of church and there is training, resources and financial support on offer so that we might make connections and evangelise more effectively in our area.

Do you want your Church to reach people in your parish or benefice more effectively? Do you want people you are in touch with through work or leisure to be transformed through the presence of Christ? Do you want to witness the change that happens when the Kingdom of God breaks into your network and community?

If so, then all of us have a part to play. Some will have a specific gift and calling to share the message of Christ. Others will play their part just by being enabled to talk about their faith with colleagues, friends and neighbours. Some will run groups to help people find out about the Christian faith. Others will play a supportive role, offering hospitality and friendship.

We need to find new ways of connecting with people and sharing with them the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is laid upon us to 'proclaim the faith afresh in each generation'. So, we need this ministry of evangelism to be as normal a part of parish life as worship on Sundays. For without an on-going ministry of evangelism we will fail in our responsibility to answer the call that Jesus gives us at the end of Matthew’s gospel “to make disciples.” And if we are not making and growing disciples all the others things we long to do to make a difference in the world will falter.

 

May we go into 2014 committed to that mission and open to the opportunities which the Diocesan Centenary and Crossing London provide for our mission and ministry here at St John's and in Seven Kings.

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John Tavener - Ikon Of Light.

New Contextual Theology Centre website

The Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) equips churches to engage with their communities: to understand and enter more deeply into the communities where God has placed them; to discern and respond to his presence and action, and so to engage in faithful and effective witness.

CTC have recently launched a new website. As well as containing courses and resources for use by local congregations and small groups, the website also has details of events to which you are warmly invited, such as our bi-monthly community Bible study. Visit the website by clicking here. 

A monthly emailed update is also available to inform you about their work, tell you about their events, resources and projects and highlight some of their partner congregations and organisations.

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Alice Cooper - I Am Made Of You.

Pentecostal diversity

The Day of Pentecost is the turning point in the history of Christ’s Church. The believers have gone from gathering together in fear of the authorities to gathering together in readiness for the promised gift. They are waiting to be baptised with the Holy Spirit. Jesus has spoken to them about the Kingdom of God and told them that when the Holy Spirit comes upon them they will be filled with power and will be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That prophecy and promise is fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enables the believers to God’s message to all.  
 

We often think that Jesus’ words, “you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” mean that they were to start with their own people and gradually move from there to the ends of earth. What we forget is that on the day of Pentecost there were Jews and Gentile converts living in Jerusalem who had come from every country in the world. The different countries or areas are listed for us in verses 9 – 11: Parthia, Media and Elam; Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia; Pontus and Asia; Phrygia and Pamphylia; Egypt and Libya; Rome, Crete and Arabia. Every country in the world was right there in Jerusalem.

There was a real diversity of nationalities present and of languages spoken in Jerusalem and the coming of the Holy Spirit enabled the believers in Jerusalem to engage with the diversity that they found in Jerusalem. As they were filled with the Holy Spirit they all began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. As a result, although the believers were mainly Galileans and not known for being multi-lingual, each person there in Jerusalem heard God’s message in his or her own language. The Holy Spirit embraced the diversity of Jerusalem and gave the believers the tools they needed to communicate in and through that diversity.

But those diversities – of nationality and language – aren’t the only diversities mentioned in this passage. In explaining what God is doing at that time in Jerusalem, Peter speaks about a diversity of age and gender. Look at the passage that he quotes from the Book of Joel in verses 17-21 – there we find the Holy Spirit being poured out on everyone, young and old, men and women, so that all see visions, dream dreams and proclaim God’s message. God uses the diversity of age and gender among the believers in order to speak to the diversity of nations and languages in Jerusalem.

Now think about our situation here in Seven Kings and in London. Doesn’t it seem similar to the situation in Jerusalem? It certainly is if you think about the history of London. London has always been one of the world's great cosmopolitan cities. Throughout history, people have come from every continent and corner of the globe to live, to visit, and to mix. Today the city brings together more than 50 ethnic communities of 10,000 or more people. More than 70 different national cuisines are available and a staggering 300 different languages are spoken. That same diversity of ethnicities and language is also here in Seven Kings just as in London. The world is right here in Seven Kings and in London just as it was in Jerusalem.

Just as, at Pentecost, God poured out his Spirit on old and young, men and women, so we see a diversity to our congregation here at St John’s and also among the Churches of Redbridge. But that diversity is not given to us so that we can pat ourselves on the back and think how wonderful we are. It is given to us so that we can proclaim the message of God to people of every ethnicity, age, gender, disability, sexuality and religion. And we need the Holy Spirit’s power, gifts and enabling to make that happen.

We need to remember too that as the Early Church grew and as God’s message spread there were people who tried to restrict this wonderful new diversity. Even Peter, who led this move into diversity at Pentecost, on one occasion in Galatia tried to restrict the diversity of what God was doing and had to be rebuked by Paul. In the same way today, there are those both in the Church and in our society who want to place restrictions on this diversity.

In the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost God celebrates and engages with the diversity that we find in the world he has created. The Holy Spirit comes on all for all and we must not seek to restrict the Spirit’s coming but must enable all to hear God’s call on their lives and be filled by the Spirit just as occurred on that first Pentecost in Jerusalem when all the world’s diversity was gathered to see the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all and for all.

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Mark Heard - The Dry Bones Dance.

Run the race: run with fire

This morning we used the More Than Gold and Run With The Fire DVDs in the All-Age Service at St John's Seven Kings to begin preparing our congregation for the 2012 Olympics and to explore what we can learn from the concept of the Christian life as a race to be run. We said: 

"Run with the Fire is an arts project for the London 2012 Olympics which celebrates creativity, cultural exchange and hope for the future. The picture on our Text for 2012 comes from the project and in a moment as an act of prayer and reflection we will look at some words and images from the project.

The ideas that seeded Run with the Fire come from the celebration of Pentecost, with its tongues of fire, new languages, and promise of dreams and visions, plus the Olympic Games, with its running messenger carrying forward the burning torch and its dreams of cross cultural harmony.

Living as a Christian is like running a race: we need to train hard through bible study, fellowship, prayer and lifestyle change, we need to run hard with real commitment throughout our lives (no distractions, no veering off track), and we run to win the prize which is the coming in full of God’s kingdom of love, mercy, justice and peace.

To run the race well, we need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who is our example and our goal; the pattern and example of what the kingdom of God will look like when it fully comes. He has shown us how to run the race – we are following in his footsteps – and he is our goal because his life shows what the kingdom of God will look like when it comes in full:

“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed — that exhilarating finish in and with God — he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he ploughed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Our Text for 2012 gives us another athletics image to savour and that is of a full stadium cheering us on as we run our race:

"We are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses – all those who have borne witness to the truth of Christ before us. All the saints, all the heroes of the Bible, all those who encouraged us in our faith but who are no longer with us; each one is there in the stadium stands yelling and cheering to encourage us to preserve, continue and complete the race that we are running.

Do you see what this means — all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running — and never quit!”

In 2012 17,000 athletes representing 205 countries will compete in 26 different sports. The example provided by these athletes in their preparation for the 2012 Olympics can teach us about living the Christian life; running the race of life for Jesus. This is what our Text for 2012 encourages us to believe and do. To run our race well we need to get rid of all that would distract us or weigh us down, train hard, focus on the example of Jesus and on the goal of the coming kingdom of God, and be encouraged by those who have run before us to run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us."

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Philip Bailey - I Am Gold.